Most contractor fraud follows a few patterns. Learn them and the rest takes care of itself.
The common scams
- Storm chasers. After a hurricane or hail, out-of-town crews knock on doors offering fast roof or siding work, take a deposit and disappear or do shoddy, unpermitted work. Stick with licensed local pros you can verify.
- The big deposit. A demand for most of the money up front — especially cash — is the classic setup to vanish or stop showing up.
- Unpermitted work. Skipping the permit to "save you money" leaves you with uninspected work that can fail an inspection, void insurance and cost more at resale.
- Bait and switch. A low bid that balloons with "surprises" once the job starts, or cheaper materials than quoted.
How to protect yourself
Verify the license and insurance before you sign. Get an itemized written contract with scope, materials, timeline and a milestone payment schedule. Keep the permit in the contractor's name, pay by traceable methods, and get lien waivers as you pay so a subcontractor can't put a lien on your home for money you already paid.